My serpentine belt has developed an intermittent, annoying squeal. I was having some squealing before because the belt was pretty cracked so I replaced it and everything was good for awhile.

The belt I replaced it with is a Certified 725K6 (i have the RRM pulley.) It stopped squealing for a few months but now does it again. There's usually a small squeal when I first start it. Sometimes it squeal for 30 seconds right at startup.

It will almost always squeal when I turn on the fan on either heat or AC. If it doesn't, it will squeal after coming to a full stop. It also seems to happen sometimes when turning corners or turning the steering wheel all the way to one side.

Sorry I know this post is kind of all over the place but any advice will help. I was thinking of just replacing the belt but since it's only a few months old I thought maybe there's something else I could do.

Thanks.

 

take the belt off, have a look at it, see if there's any visual wear on either side...while it's out, check the tensioner, idler, and water pump pulleys are not seized...

 

I changed belts and pulleys chasing squeals. Now I just spray the f**ker with Tire Wet.

 

Isn't belt dressing typically a bad idea? Won't that cause issues?

 

^It's more of a temporary solution. Also, if you use it repeatedly it can start to gunk up other parts.

^This. Use to change out bad pulleys and tensioners at work all the time. Most likely the problem.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. My car knowledge is very, very basic. Once I take off the belt, is it easy to see the tensioner, idler, etc?

 

Have a go at it while you got the passenger wheel off the car and the splash guards out of the way.

 

the tensioner is above and to the left of the crank, the idler is to the right...water pump is the only other smooth pulley that runs off the flat side of the belt. it's up top near the head, but back toward the firewall slightly.

 

Mine squeaks randomly. Typically when its damp / humid outside. Goes away after driving for a few minutes and everything gets warmed up. I just tune it out and ignore it. I have tried belt dressing, a new belt, and a new tensioner nothing seemed to of fix it long term. In the testing that I did with the car running if I spray silicon in the tensioner wheel the noise goes away. The funny thing is I ordered a new one from Gates and the first start up it squeaked lol. So after that I said screw it.

 

When I had the issue I replaced the tensioner and the idler pulley and it went away for me. I only did both since my tensioner was seized and I needed a new one. my original thought was idler pulley at first since my water pump was new at the time since it happened close to my engine failure.

 

mine was my water pump was starting to seize...you could see where material from the belt was being left behind on the pulley...I had a timing belt kit and new water pump on the shelf, and the timing belt broke the weekend I was coming home to replace it...

 

I finally got around to changing the belt. While it was off I checked and none of the pulleys were seized, they all moved freely.

The squeal went away for about 4 days but now it's slowly starting again. At this point I'm guessing it's probably the tensioner. For those that have replaced it before, is it a fairly easy fix?

 

I've never changed it on that exact car but... Usually it's pretty straightforward.

 

yeah, it's easy...should only be 1 bolt...maybe more, i can't remember, but it's easy.

just looked it up, there's one long one, and a little one off to side....

 

there's 2 bolts.